


One last tribute

by kitbug



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen, I'm Serious, do you really want me to list everyone, i'd say this contains major character death but she's already dead and it isn't shown lol, i've since been told people should bring a tissue for this, no, no one wants that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:14:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22862326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitbug/pseuds/kitbug
Summary: On the first anniversary of the end of the Reaper War, a short documentary in memoriam to Commander Shepard is compiled and aired across the galaxy.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	One last tribute

**Author's Note:**

> This was something I wrote _immediately_ after finishing the Mass Effect Trilogy for the first time, a little over two years ago. It's been sitting in my WIP folder almost as long, mostly completed, because it's a very personal piece, and I wasn't quite ready to share it.
> 
> I guess I'm ready to let it see the light of day now.

_Good evening, everyone. I’m Diane Allers with the Alliance News Network. Tonight, we have a very special program for you. It’s been one standard year since the Reaper War ended, thanks to the heroic actions of Commander Harper Shepard and her team on the Normandy SR2. And while we all know of the legend, very few of us in the galaxy were privileged enough to know the person within the uniform._

_I spent the last several months traveling the stars to speak with those who were closest to her. What follows is a series of short videos from the Commander’s former comrades, asked if there was anything they wanted to share about the Commander to better help the galaxy to understand the kind of person she was, and audio recordings reflecting on her from those that are no longer with us._

—

“She told me on the eve of that final push that there was no Shepard without Vakarian.” Garrus laughs, but it’s hollow. He turns away and looks out the window across the plains of Rannoch. Several seconds pass before he continues speaking. His subharmonics thicken and waver, making his voice difficult to decipher. “After she..” 

He clears his throat and turns back to face the camera, control of himself regained. “After she came back the first time, it never occured to me that I’d have to be Vakarian without Shepard again. She was… indomitable. I always thought it’d be _me_ waiting at the bar.”

—

“After we took back Rannoch, I had a new dream: that after we stopped the Reapers, I’d build my house, and we’d sit here on my deck and have a drink together.” The wind gently tugs at Tali’s hair, and she smiles despite the tears gathering in her eyes. Garrus comes up behind her and places a hand on her shoulder. She covers it with hers. 

“And for the first time, I wouldn’t have to drink it through a filtered straw.”

—

“The krogan… no, the galaxy, owes her everything. She’s a hero. A legend. She gave us _all_ a new future.” Wrex shifts on the sofa carefully, trying not to disturb the trio of tiny krogan infants sprawled across his lap. He closes his eyes and inhales sharply. “But that doesn’t ease the pain of losing my sister.”

—

“I always regretted what I said to her at Horizon, on Mars, on the Citadel. I was still… jumping to conclusions about things I didn’t even want to try to understand. Two years older, and not a bit wiser. What a waste.” Ashley laughs bitterly and stares at the drink in her hand. “She was… a more loyal friend than I ever deserved.”

She toasts the air and throws back the drink, muddying if her voice was harsh due to emotion or alcohol. “Godspeed, Skipper. Godspeed.”

—

“She was… so tired at the end. She wouldn’t talk about it, but I think every death caused by the Reapers weighed heavy on her shoulders. Especially her own death. None of us would be here if we hadn’t brought her back that first time. No one else could have performed the miracles she did.” Liara turns away as her breathy voice thickens. Her gaze lands on a set of dog tags on the desk, carefully framed on blue velvet. 

“I don’t think she ever regretted her return or held it against me. Better Cerberus than the Collectors, she always said. But, some part of me will always feel guilty about denying her peace the first time. I’m glad... no one can take that from her now.”

—

“Biggest set of balls I ever saw on anyone. She took shit from nobody— not even me— and could drink a krogan under the table. Saw it a few times, with that tank-bred monster she adopted. She was a hell of a woman.” Zaeed looks pensive, almost regretful. “If I’d been twenty years younger…”

—

“Lost another female today.” There’s a sharp intake of breath in the recording. “Arrived to STG facility too late, couldn’t stop it. One female left. Maelon’s research notes helpful. Know what to do to counter effects. Can keep her alive.” 

There’s a pause, and a quiet clink of metal on metal. “Shepard was right. Should have been _me_ researching cure. Too proud, too stubborn. Still… not too late to correct mistakes. I _will_ figure out how to synthesize cure from female. Has to be me. Someone else will get it wrong, again.”

—

The geth chatter as they reach a consensus with lightning speeds. After almost a minute of this passes, a prime turns from the group and addresses the camera. 

“Shepard-Commander was the first organic since the Morning War to treat geth as equals. She eliminated the heretics that followed the Old Machines and ended the hostility between the geth and the quarian creators. She secured a future for _all_ to self-determinate. We will not forget.”

—

“She was… the most amazing person I’ve ever known.” Miranda tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I was so jealous of her, at first. This street rat kid that clawed her way up from nothing to become the most vaunted human in the galaxy. It took me a long time to internalize the lesson she had to teach me. The circumstances of our births do not define us. What we do with our lives does.”

—

“We were able to have our baby girl because of her,” Jacob says as he cradles the infant. The baby fusses, and he hands her off to his wife. “She’s just hungry. Our daughter was born into a galaxy that’s safe again because she never gave up the fight. Even if she were still with us, we’d never be able to repay her. But we honored her as best we could.” 

He nudges his daughter’s tiny hand and she grabs onto his finger. “Little Harper has a big name to carry, but I know she’ll make us proud.”

—

“I called her a girl scout all the time, but she was the baddest bitch of all.” Jack runs a hand through her crown of hair, pushes it out of her eyes. She looks squarely into the camera. “She taught me that it takes a far stronger person to keep trying and keep caring, despite everything--and I mean _everything_ \--that’s happened than to write it all off.”

—

“She was afraid of the stars.” 

Samara dispels the biotic energy she was using in her meditation and stares up into the endless sea of space. “It was understandable, of course, after the SR1. She never said anything, but you could feel it. A nervous tension that felt out of place in such a distinguished soldier. During my time on the Normandy, when she visited me in the starboard viewport, she would sit in front of me, with her back to the stars. It took months, but gradually, the fear lessened. I felt so much pride when she sat beside me and looked out at them. We spoke for hours, and then sat together in comfortable silence.”

“I mourned the loss of a third daughter the day the war ended.” Next to her, Falare takes her hand. 

—

“She taught me what it meant to be… everything. A krogan. A warrior. A comrade.” Grunt takes a long drink from his bottle of ryncol. The bottle is almost empty. “A tank-bred krogan like me doesn’t have a mother, but she…” He sighs, hangs his head, and walks away.

—

“She was the reason my father lived so long beyond the doctor’s expectations. Without her, I would still be lost, and he would have died alone, unmourned. I… would have liked to know her better, to know what kind of person could inspire such life in him, short as it was destined to be. If my father found another siha in her, perhaps I could have…” Kolyat shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I will meet them again across the sea.”

—

“I invited her out for drinks after I heard about Thane. I know what it feels like to lose the one dearest to your heart. She... asked me if it ever stops hurting.” Kasumi’s gaze falls as she fiddles with something in her pocket. 

“It doesn’t,” she says after a moment, and vanishes into nothing.

—

“Next week would have been the official date for us to crack open another bottle of Serrice Ice.” Dr. Chakwas pulls a bottle of the expensive brandy out of the cabinet and sets it on the table. “There aren’t many bottles of this left in the galaxy. Serrice was absolutely decimated in the attack on Thessia, and breweries aren’t exactly top priority for reconstruction.” 

Dr. Chakwas is quiet for a few seconds before continuing. “Adams and Joker will be joining me at the memorial statue to toast her. We won’t be able to finish the bottle, not like she could.” She sighs with the weight of someone who’s buried far too many of their children. “There won’t ever be another like her.”

—

“She always made you feel safe. Like nothing awful could happen to you on her watch. When the Collectors…” Kelly shakes her head like she can physically drive the thoughts away. “She _came for us_. I’ll never forget that. We all survived that suicide mission through the Omega 4 relay. She didn’t leave anyone behind.”

—

“She was the kind of person who made you believe you could do anything. The amount of faith she had in us was staggering. It was empowering. It was… I don’t know if I can really describe it. Or her. She was a wonder to behold.” Samantha picks up a hematite chess piece, a queen, and fidgets with it. The board on the table shows rose quartz had won, several pieces surrounding the black king mercilessly. She looks at it and grins despite her somberness. 

“But she was _really bad_ at chess.”

—

“Someone like her only comes along once a millenium. I should know.” Aria T’Loak’s voice carries with practiced ease over the roaring thrum of techno bass. The new leather sectional squeaks as she shifts on it, not quite broken in. She scowls and stares at the empty space to her right. Her gaze softens, and she says just on the edge of hearing, “we would have been _unstoppable_.”

—

“I always envisioned this unstoppable juggernaut, this beacon of humanity that we should all aspire to be. And then they _locked her up_ . And put _me_ in charge of her. Do you know how _loco_ that was? I met her, and she was… everything and nothing like I imagined.” James punctuates every few words with a pull up and a count under his breath. 

“You hear the reports of what she did, you know, Akuze, Sovereign, the Collectors, and you just imagine this infallible hero. But after waking to her violent nightmares, and hearing her side of things, I realized she was just as broken inside as the rest of us. Probably even moreso. She just did one hell of a job hiding it, because the galaxy needed her to.” 

He does a few more reps and drops off the bar at 182.

—

“If someone like her had existed at the beginning of _our_ war with the Reapers, your cycle would have likely been very different. You would all be Prothean.” Javik passes the memory shard back and forth between his hands. “Perhaps it is fortunate for you that it was not so. Perhaps not. All I know is that she achieved the impossible. This galaxy is yours now to do with as you wish.”

He considers the shard in his hand and tosses it off camera. A startled curse is heard, but no crash of it hitting the floor. “Give that to Dr. T’soni. There is no longer any need for an avatar of vengeance. It is time I join my people, and inform them that the war is finally over.”

—

“You know, I pulled her ass out of the fire dozens of times. _Dozens_ . Count the mission reports, they’re there.” Joker flips a few switches on the control console and turns in the chair to face the camera. “And I never _once_ felt like I ever managed to pay her back for saving _my_ crippled ass when the SR1 went down.”

“She never blamed you, Jeff,” says a quiet voice offscreen. The camera pulls back to capture the silver feminine android in the co-pilot’s chair in the picture as well. “I am simply a mechanical assistant VI,” she says in a stiff and mechanical voice. “Please pay me no mind.”

Joker waves a negligent hand. “It’s alright, EDI. You can drop the act and play, too.”

EDI sits unmoving for several seconds before answering. The inflection returns to her voice. “Shepard was known by the galaxy for her boundless ferocity and determination. Few were privileged to witness the depth of her selflessness and love. She should be remembered for both.”

—

“She was… the kind of commanding officer you pray you get to serve under when you start your career. A stalwart guide who inspires you to be the best version of yourself you can be, who knows when to give you a kick in the ass, and when to back off and let you sort yourself out.” Cortez doesn’t look at the camera. He watches ships slip in and out of the docking bay in perfect silence. “It was the greatest honor to serve with her.”

—

“When I first met her, she was this gangly, underfed teenager dressed in ragged clothes, with a mane of untameable red hair and wild eyes. She bumped into me while I was walking down the street. She picked my pocket and stole my credit chit.” Hackett chuckles at the memory and shakes his head. 

“The tingle of her biotics gave her away. Newly manifested, she couldn’t control them. I took my chit back, gave her the cash in my pocket, and a recruitment card for the Alliance. Told her there was something more out there for her if she wanted it, a place she could belong. She showed up at the Vancouver office two days later.”

—

“How did she end up under my command?” The recording starts with Anderson repeating back the interviewer’s question. He leans back in the chair, stroking his chin pensively. 

“Admiral Hackett, rear-admiral at the time, asked for a favor. Wanted me to take over officer training for a newly crowned N7 soldier who’d lost everything on Akuze. Probably thought, after that mess with my Spectre candidacy, that I’d know best how to get her back on her feet.” He laughs with quiet awe. “Once she was back in action, I felt like I owed _him_ a favor for sending her my way.”

—

_We hope tonight’s programming has served as an adequate memorial Commander Shepard, and given everyone a better understanding of the humanity behind the legend._

_May we never forget the sacrifices that led us to this day._

_This is Diana Allers, with Alliance News Network, signing off._

**Author's Note:**

> Shepard dying isn't canon to my world state anymore, I've changed my mind on a few things since originally writing this. But I couldn't ever bring myself to get rid of this one because I'm a sentimental nerd, lol. Most of the things people say in here are canon to my current vision of my Shepard, and I hope provide some interesting insight to her character.


End file.
